Not long ago, self-driving cars seemed like science fiction. But Google is now operating so-called autonomous cars in California and Nevada, and last week at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Toyota and Audi unveiled prototypes for self-driving cars to sell to ordinary car buyers. (Google co-founder Sergey Brin said last year he expects his company to have them ready for the general public within five years.) In a report backing self-driving cars, the consulting firm KPMG and the Center for Automotive Research recently predicted that driving is “on the brink of a new technological revolution.”

But as the momentum for self-driving cars grows, one question is getting little attention: Should they even be legal? And if they are, how will the laws of driving have to adapt? All our rules about driving — from who pays for a speeding ticket to who is liable for a crash — are based on having a human behind the wheel. That is going to have to change.

There are some compelling reasons to support self-driving cars. Regular cars are inefficient: the average commuter spends 250 hours a year behind the wheel. They are dangerous. Car crashes are a leading cause of death for Americans ages 4 to 34 and cost some $300 billion a year. Google and other supporters believe that self-driving cars can make driving more efficient and safer by eliminating distracted driving and other human error. Google’s self-driving cars have cameras on the top to look around them and computers to do the driving. Their safety record is impressive so far. In the first 300,000 miles, Google reported that its cars had not had a single accident. Last August, one got into a minor fender bender, but Google said it occurred while someone was manually driving it.

After heavy lobbying and campaign contributions, Google persuaded California and Nevada to enact laws legalizing self-driving cars. The California law breezed through the state legislature — it passed 37-0 in the senate and 74-2 in the assembly — and other states could soon follow. The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which represents big carmakers like GM and Toyota, opposed the California law, fearing it would make it too easy for carmakers and individuals to modify cars to self-drive without the careful protections built in by Google.

That is a reasonable concern. If we are going to have self-driving cars, the technical specifications should be quite precise. Just because your neighbor Jeb is able to jerry-rig his car to drive itself using an old PC and some fishing tackle, that does not mean he should be allowed to.

As self-driving cars become more common, there will be a flood of new legal questions. If a self-driving car gets into an accident, the human who is “co-piloting” may not be fully at fault — he may even be an injured party. Whom should someone hit by a self-driving car be able to sue? The human in the self-driving car or the car’s manufacturer? New laws will have to be written to sort all this out.

How involved — and how careful — are we going to expect the human co-pilot to be? As a Stanford Law School report asks, “Must the ‘drivers’ remain vigilant, their hands on the wheel and their eyes on the road? If not, what are they allowed to do inside or outside, the vehicle?” Can the human in the car drink? Text-message? Read a book? Not surprisingly, the insurance industry is particularly concerned and would like things to move slowly. Insurance companies say all the rules of car insurance may need to be rewritten, with less of the liability put on those operating cars and more on those who manufacture them.

At the signing ceremony for California’s self-driving-car law, Governor Jerry Brown was asked who is responsible when a self-driving car runs a red light. He answered: “I don’t know — whoever owns the car, I would think. But we will work that out. That will be the easiest thing to work out.” Google’s Brin joked, “Self-driving cars don’t run red lights.”

Neither answer is sufficient. Self-driving cars should be legal — and they are likely to start showing up faster and in greater numbers than people expect. But if that is the case, we need to start thinking about the legal questions now. Given the high stakes involved in putting self-guided, self-propelled, high-speed vehicles on the road, “we will work that out” is not good enough.

why are these cars not legal and out to consumers they have had over ten years testing them I mean that should be plenty of time it seems to me like one big joke and another thing everything seems to be around that big 2020 woooo do yous people not relies that there is people being killed on the roads I don't think yous do cause its all about that big 2020 wonder how many lives will be lost until this self driving car does comes out.

I think moral question will quickly become "Should it be legal for Humans to drive on public roads?" and the insurance companies will answer "No". Death and injury rates will plummet when humans no longer guide these 3000 pound missiles.

Can you really imagine a time when cars will be able to make decisions about a big leaf, a small dog, a turtle etc.?Until then, the full attention of the driver will be required. Even if, that's IF, all cars are on the system and they can't run into each other, would it be tolerable for a car to slam on it's breaks for everything we normally run over?

I am sure the technology will advance much faster than the law. Personally, I have a hard time imagining insurance companies accepting the spread of these vehicles until liability is clearly established in the courts. Even if they are significantly less likely to have accidents than human-operated vehicles, they are still going to have accidents and when they do the question of responsibility becomes quite complex. For example, presumably some of these vehicles will be unmanned delivery type vehicles. Who is responsible when one is involved in an accident? There is no "driver" per se, is it the company that owns the vehicle or the manufacturer at fault?

Also, I can't help but think that these automated cars are almost tailor made for criminal operations. I think these vehicles would be huge targets for hackers just because of the criminal potential. Take drug smuggling for example, an automated vehicle would make the perfect driver if it were reprogrammed in the right way.

I like to drive, but of course selfdriving cars will be useful to those who don't or when you're ill, exhausted or drunk. It's amazing that we can talk abiut this as somethingthat is going to happen in the near future. I remember reading about Sally, the positronic car that Asimov imagined. Great!

Self-driving cars and Zipcar are a match made in heaven. Can you imagine getting up in the morning, going to your phone and ordering a Zipcar, which drives itself to your house (on time!), picks you up and takes you to work, where after it drops you off, goes off to the next customer? At the end of the day the car is back at your work, ready to take you home. What a boon for the elderly, handicapped and those who are unable to drive!

Quote: Last August, one got into a minor fender bender, but Google said it occurred while someone was manually driving it. UnQuote:

I know I'm splitting hairs here, but when I read an article in the New York Times titled "Google Cars Drive Themselves, in Traffic"

The article stated: "The only accident, engineers said, was when one Google car was rear-ended while stopped at a traffic light." If that statement is true, the accident was by a conventional human driven car.

More importantly though, when these types of cars completely take over (as I believe they will) ,stop lights, traffic signs, driver's permits - the whole mishpookta will no longer be required. We will at that point be on a complex conveyer belt. Go ahead, drink as much as you want!

I can see a dark side though, yes there will be no high speed car chases, which is a good thing. But I can just see the police having the ability, if they so wished, to press a few buttons, your car doors will lock, and it will then drive you safely to the police station of their choice. -- a little spooky.

And more interestingly, I feel that the dream of the flying car will be ushered in post haste. What is a flying car but a very small plane or helicopter that can drive along a road if it so wished. They could of been introduced ages ago, but they weren't because of the accident problem. Can you imagine it? It is a busy day in future land and Joe Sixpack stagers into to his flying car to get another round, hits another flying car carrying a family of six going to church, the pieces of car and people will cascade down hitting other flying cars until the people on the ground get the final blow. It just can't be allowed. Well, the self driving car or self guiding flying car will change the whole paradigm of transportation.

"We will work that out" isn't good enough? That's ridiculous. That means they know they need an answer and they're going to figure it out, which is exactly good enough, exactly what setting up laws is.

I have been in the Automotive trades as a catalog info guy for better than 40 years, Thankfully I am old enuf that these things will not be forced upon me. I want nothing to do with them. For those idiots on the road who don't really know how to drive, they can be a help, but for those of us who really learned how to drive, defensively and cordially this is an affront !

Why not just make semi-self-driving vehicles? Let a human drive just as we do now, but have automatic break systems and automatic steering in emergency cases.

Let's say you drive the car and suddenly something jumps out in front of you, the automatic steering would respond a lot quicker and a lot more accurately as to where and how fast to turn to avoid hitting something/someone. Same with breaks...

Brin wasn't joking. Google's cars *don't* run red lights - or commit any of the other infractions you mention. Google's design arguably avoids all of the issues you raise.

But the one new (at least to me) issue you do raise, is enormous: If the law permits Google cars, it has to permit Big Ed's Correspondence Course car kits. But any set of specifiable standards will become child's play in short time, given Moore's law - and what distinguishes Goliath from every wannabe David isn't a list of numbers, but an irreplicable environment of knowledge and services.

You can quantify anything, even variable quality, which is what insurance does, and there's the rub: Getting insured for DIY uberauto-mobiles is (one should hope) going to be prohibitive, while insurance to let Google drive will (like the car) be ad-sponsored.

I work in IT, and have seen even the most well thought out program have a flaw that has caused it to crash, break, abend whatever you'd like to call it. It may be safer in some ways but no one can say they are truly safe. All it takes is a flaw in the system, or someone finding a way to hack into the system, heck a solar flare haha, you never know and the nice little car that takes you to work will be suddenly taking you for a wild ride.

not sure about driving rules .. but I guarantee you .. self driving cars will save the lives of thousands of teenagers every year .. however they will increase the number of unwanted teenager pregnancies conceived while driving ...

God bless America for creating the conditions that have allowed companies like Google to flourish and innovate and go against the world trend and actually produce something this great and this useful. Thank you Google.

Really no one ever asks the most obvious....What about commercial trucks...What industry go gain the most, cutting out the cost of the driver, 24 hr a day operation... Self Drive Semi's that the real economic and safety question.

NO NO NO!!! Are you freakin kidding me?! FIRST of all, look at the frequency of major storms. Become more reliant on systems that could totally crash? THESE PEOPLE need to develop a better fuel source at best. The internal combustion engine is the only way to go. Imagine a thing like the JAPAN tsunami... what if all our machines run on electricity and peripheral systems. How are we supposed to rebuild and move around and be self sufficient if A COMPANY like McServer is destroyed or compromised for whatever unforeseen reason. Look how long it took people to get power in Jersey/NYC. ANOTHER THING>>> these kids today need to learn more about tactile practices and tool knowledge. I spent a lot of time in the garage playing with bikes and skateboards, hammers and screws and saws and wrenches, and moved on to cars and motorcycles and other things. It's a valuable thing to keep the inherited building blocks of human achievement in your societies' repertoire.

This artilce is much ado about nothing. Self driving cars will come soon, and they will be a vast improvement over human driven cars. I think the author was fishing around for something to write about and came up with this non-story.

sounds like a bad idea to me. this could just be the first step, whats next? computers capable of doing jobs that humans constantly fall to error in? i don't see why everyone wants computers to be a part of our lives every minute of every day. people don't want to think for themselves anymore and would rather have someone or something (computer) take the fall for their actions. the US disgusts me more and more each day and i cant wait to get a college degree and get out of here. people should live simply and stop destroying the earth, its a beautiful place that we as a whole are taking for granted, generations to come should have the same opportunities as us. i know this isn't just about the self-driven cars but change must come if you want generations to come to have the same opportunities to experience nature as we do now.

I am all for it as long as the penalties are prohibitively high for the companies when their system makes a mistake and someone dies. It will happen at some point, even if it is safer than people driving, I am sure it is, but without a person responsible these companies must be held to a high standard since it will be they are liable. I am thinking about automatically $1 billion for each person whose life is lost, corporate profits cannot be balanced against a human life.

Think about all the jobs that will be lost due to this technology. Truck, bus and taxi drivers will all be out of work. I am not against the sell driving vehicle technology but as a society we need to sort out not only legal issues but also human impact issues related to this technology.

@False_Believer If the car is smart enough it would refuse to be used that way. I doubt it will be THAT smart for a long time. But at least the auto-car would leave records of where it came from and al the routes t took over the last few years. I'm bet tin all cars ail have some kind of "black box" made of hard steel.

@tagrhm That is why you do a slow roll out of the program. Gradually increase the amount of cars until they are shown to be far safer than manual cars, and any initial flaws ironed out. Also build in fail-safes. e.g. brakes that cut in on lose of power, several computers independent of each other, and a BIG RED emergency stop button.

@tagrhm This isn't about IT. All human designs are flawed, including current car safety features. The innovation of the self driving car will save thousands of lives per year. We _will_ be absolving the creators of liability for the greater good of society.

True enough, but you know when a trucker is behind schedule they're going to push the limits (and road conditions) to get somewhere. It will take some adjustment for trucking companies to give up that flexibility.

The Self Drive commercial truck will be a major leap forward in road safety and reap major economic benefits for industry. Drivers will have to diversify, innovate and learn to think computationally. Our roads will become safe for pedestrians and cyclists, and journey times will be cut by reduced congestion.

This has been going on for a long time, a lot longer than most people today realise. Computer having been assisting with flying commercial jets for over two decades. Automatic telephone exchanges started replacing human operators over 100 years ago, and were invented due to that fallibility of humans. The industrial revolution came about because machines were built that could replace humans, or make their jobs easier.

Computers and other machines give people more free time in which to think, or sit in front of a TV and not think.

@peacemanjack I don't see how this technology would be bad for the environment. One car in a family could drop of Mom at the office, take Grandma to her Dr's appointment and food shopping, pick up kids at school then go back and pick up Mom at the end of the day. Today, Mom's car sits all day in a parking lot. Grandma needs her own car, kids would have to get another ride. The trend is the younger generation is not buying cars, imagine if their was some way to share these cars when they needed it.

@peacemanjack Perhaps you didn't realize, in your anti-computer, anti-U.S. rant, that you are using a computer to post it, and had to have used one to read the article, your thinking is neither logical or rational, your English grammar is very poor (also indicating a lack of care and thought, even if it IS a second language) and you are free to leave this country immediately if you don't like it, which has absolutely nothing to do with the story. In short, you've proven that computers don't think, and neither did you.

Since it's obviously escaped your attention, ALSO indicating a lack of care in your thinking, neither Audi or Toyota are American companies. Since you're here for an education, Audi is owned by Volkswagon (a German car company) and Toyota is a Japanese car company. Both have plants in the United States because the U.S. is the largest auto-driving market in the world, although China is rapidly gaining ground there.

In fact, your complete LACK of reason and logic in your rant indicates that YOU don't think at all, either. We have a saying here: The pot calling the kettle black. It means you demonstrate all of the qualities you have just insulted, and are what we call a hypocrite. Obviously, your college education is being wasted if you are not learning about how to present a cogent, rational argument without blatant contradictions and wandering off topic.

Maybe a little less Red Bull and a little more thought before you leap into rants in the future would be good for your perspective.

@PaulMiller You DO realize, of course, that you're obviously not for anything if you want to have penalties for failures a completely irrational billion dollars per life.

And just an FYI: Corporations ALWAYS put profits ahead of human life when they can get away with it. Balancing profits against safety is a major field of interest for every corporation. If you don't balance profits against safety, you either end up with no company and no profits or you end up with unsafe products.

@andypandya10 If your going to consider drivers, then you also have to consider the other side of the coin.

It will make shipping significantly cheaper, which will lead to a drop in price for almost everything. This means everyone will have more disposable income to spend, which will lead to to job creation in other areas.

Will it all balance out in the end? If it was just drivers, then i would say probably. But with so many technologies being invented that eliminate so many jobs in such a short time, it is very worrisome.

I believe the government needs to step in and help those effected, first and foremost by retraining people for other jobs.

There is also the problem of motivation. Why would anyone want to spend 8 hours a day (or more for long distance drivers) driving around when a computer is capable of doing it (and doing it better)? At that point it seems more like a hobby, not a job.

@DeweySayenoff@peacemanjack you bring up some very good points. i am aware that i used a computer to post this and read the article, that would be silly if i didn't... i just have a problem with people needing technological devices everywhere they go, i'm guessing you are one of those people based on your rant, which i fully respect. you have an incredible ability to use big words and have an incredible understanding of the english language. i've lived in the US my entire life and am still here because i am aware it is the best education in the world. i was truly blessed to be born into a family that could satisfy nearly all of my needs and desires. i've simply realized that i need to get back to my ancestral heritage to stay sane because it's hard for me to grasp how little people care about their actions in not only the US, but other major powers in the world as well. i don't use grammar while posting because it is just that, a post, this isn't a writing competition if you've been lead to believe that. i just wanted to get my opinion across that technology and advancement of our civilization is destroying the earth, i just happened to post it in a article about self-driven cars. we are not the only species on this planet whether you're aware of it or not. the US is a primary example of a country that wastes so much and conserves so little. i don't consider myself a hypocrite in any sense because i have my beliefs and stand by them. i'm very sorry my comment disturbed you so much and i hope you have a good day.

@DeweySayenoff@peacemanjack Maybe a little generalizing in tone but not hypocritical. A computer in the home is a tool. And I realize we benefit a great deal from automated systems that we aren't even aware of, every day. BUT, it is pretty gross how modern societies sometimes jump to solutions that take the human experience out of certain things therefore leaving us in a potentially compromising future situation, culturally speaking... or something generalizing like that hahahah!

@PaulMiller@andypandya10 In fact that you say is just a way of thinking. I respect your position, maybe it's influenced by the society you live in, your experiences, etc. But my opinion (and many others, sometimes called "socialists") is that yes, we should hold "technology", not progress if it affects the society. We don't need to be extremist, it's just that sometimes some stuff must be fully analyzed.

Another example: if you can build a robot that will do the job of 100 humans, is it good ? from a capitalistic point of view is great, i would love it as a company owner. But from the employee point of view, 100 families lost their financial stability. I don't say don't do it, i just mean that acts that impact on human life at that point (like losing a job) and simply stating "you can't stop progress" is a one sided pov which can and has caused many problems to the society. First, you need government to help those 100 families. have you wondered why countries set limits to imports ? because what would be the impact in society if for example America allows imports of chicken raised in india at cost like 1/10th the local price ? the whole local chicken production would go bankrupt and the whole economy would be affected. That's why before allowing imports of foreign product a detailed analysis is performed. To check the impact in the society of allowing some actions.

But i don't want to deviate from the main idea: it would be great, i would love to ride such a car where i can be browsing the net or playing cards while the car takes me to destination (sometimes 12 hours on the road). But i can't stop thinking about the hundredths of people affected. Again, hundredths ? thousandths ? what are they going to do ? will we just say good luck, go get unemployment benefits ? i know this has happened before like with typewriters, telegraphists. But at what costs to society.

One last though: i once thought like you, responding immediately that progress can't be stopped. I used to think that my job was my solely my problem . Until somebody explained me that some societies consider that their government is responsible for getting a job for each citizen. Societies are elected by the people to serve the people. And legislating about stuff like this (self driven cars) is one that should include this consideration.

@PaulMiller@andypandya10 Of course it is and I am not suggesting we should stop the wheels of progress because of job losses, but then we have to stop making employment such a big issue as politicians and talking heads on TV make it to be.

@mrxcol@PaulMiller@andypandya10 This has been going on throughout history. Reduce the amount of people doing menial jobs, and let them do better jobs. If it means less people in employment then raise the school leaving age, and make people better educated (in general). Then they will be able to do higher skilled jobs benefiting society more.

Oh before I comment on your comment, I notice that when I hit the "Like" button at the end of your comments, my picture goes up and "Unlike" pops up. I don't know why, but I don't want you to get the wrong idea.

Ok, now on to the topic. In 1984 I was listening to Larry King (when he was on radio believe it or not) interviewing Mr. Fuller. It was really funny. Fuller by this time was in his early 90's and Mr. King really didn't grasp who he was talking to. He started out like: "Bucky Fuller, here you are, 91 years young." etc. etc. And he started interviewing him, and then suddenly to Larry's credit, he realized he was dealing with a mental giant and just let Fuller talk.

In the talk Fuller said that the Corporations are slowly taking over from countries. That this was a political evolution taking place. He was quick to point out that Corporations was just as amoral as Countries. The only difference that made it a step forward in evolution was they saw things on more of a global scale where a country had a bias to a particular place on the planet.

He felt though, that because of their amoral nature. Quote: "They are neither good or bad, they just focus on pleasing their shareholders, and see no further." That the corporate stage of political evolution would be a short one progressing to the stage that he imagines in the book I mentioned above.

In Kurt Voniget Jr's novel - Player Piano - everyone was idle & broke. But it didn't make sense to me. If people were poor, who would buy all the multicolored gadgets and services that these corporate machine systems would have to offer?

I liked Buckminster Fuller's vision in his book - Automation/Education much better. In a nutshell he pointed out that the purpose of education today (well, actually in the 60's when the book was written) was to narrow down the human mind so they can do the dull repetitive jobs that the office and assembly line demands. But, when the machine takes over all these tasks, money would be meaningless, and education would be reworked at an aerospace level to expand the human mind that would in turn offer new demands and lifestyles that the machines can strive to fulfill.

I feel we are coming very close to this 'singularity'. We live in exciting times!

I remember a story about a salesman who was visiting a company to sell them robotic manufacturing systems. One of the employees accosted the salesman in the hallway, and said "You know if our company buys these things, people are going to lose their jobs!" The salesman replied, "If your company doesn't buy them, your competition will."